“He must want to consult with you about his plan,” remarked my father, abstractedly.
“He probably means to go bear-hunting,” said I.
“Bears? What! do you hunt bears?”
“Yes, sir; it’s fine sport. I’ve enjoyed it with him several times.”
“In my country,” said my father, “they would take you for a savage—or for a hero.”
“But it’s really less dangerous than deer-hunting, and that’s done everywhere all the while; for, instead of having to shoot at something bursting out on you unexpectedly between crags and waterfalls, all you need is to be quick and a sure shot.”
My father did not lose the slight frown from his face, but went on to talk of the way of hunting stags in Jamaica, and of the great fondness for the sport which some of his relatives had, Salomón in particular, who displayed the greatest skill in the chase; and of whom he laughingly told us several stories.
As we rose from the table he came up to me and said, “Your mother and I wish to talk with you. Come into my room.”
After I had gone with them to his study, he said to me, in a quiet voice, “I desired to have your mother present at our conversation, because it has to do with a very serious matter about which she has the same opinion as my own.”
He rose to close the door and throw away his cigarette, and then went on as follows: “You have been home three months now, and Señor A⸺ is to go to Europe at the end of two more. You are to go with him. This delay will not make much difference, not only because it is very pleasant for us to have you at home, after six years of absence, but also because it is easy to see that even here you take delight in study. I cannot conceal from you, and I ought not to, that I have great hopes, from your character and capacity, that you will be brilliantly successful in your chosen profession. You know that the family will soon need your aid, all the more since your brother’s death.”
He paused a moment, and then continued: “Yet there is something in your conduct that we do not approve. You are only twenty, and at that age an inconsiderate love for a woman may bring to nothing all those hopes of which I have just spoken. You are in love with María, as I have seen, of course, for many days. María is almost my daughter, and I should have nothing to say if your age and position would allow us to think of your marriage; but they do not; and María is very young. But these are not the only difficulties; there is another one which seems insuperable, and it is my duty to name it. María may overwhelm you, and overwhelm us, by a dreadful calamity with which she is threatened. Dr. Mayn is almost positive that she will die young, and of the same disease that was fatal to her mother. What she had yesterday was an epileptic seizure, which will grow worse with each attack, and finally become incurable; so the doctor says. Answer me one question now, reflecting carefully on what you say; answer me like the reasonable man and gentleman you are; and do not let your reply be dictated by a passion unworthy of you, when it is a question affecting your whole future, and that of those dear to you. You know now the doctor’s opinion, an opinion which merits respect, coming from Mayn; you know what befell Salomón’s wife: if we were to consent to it, would you marry María today?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“You would risk everything?”
“Everything, everything!”
“You have answered not only like a son, but also like the gentleman I have tried to make you.”
At this my mother buried her face in her handkerchief. Touched by her tears, perhaps, and also, it may be, by the firm resolve he had found in me, my father left off speaking for an instant, feeling his voice fail him.
“Well, then,” he went on, “since you have this honorable resolution, I am sure you will agree with me that you ought not to become María’s husband until after five years. It is not for me to tell you that she, who has loved you from childhood, now loves you in such a way that it is the very intensity of her affections, according to Dr. Mayn, that has brought on the symptoms of her disease. What I do say is that you and she need to be very prudent. For the future I must get you to promise me, for your own good, since you love her so much, and for hers, that you will follow the advice of the doctor which he has given in view of this very contingency. You must give no pledges to María, since a pledge to become her husband after the period I have named would only make your intercourse more affectionate, and that is precisely the thing to be avoided. I do not need to explain this to you any further. By doing as I say you may save María—may avert the awful misfortune of losing her.”
He paused and turned to my mother; then he continued: “In return for all we grant you, you must promise me this: never to speak to María of the peril hanging over her, or of what has passed between us tonight. You ought also to know my judgment about this marriage, in case the disease continues after your return—it will be some years; in that case, as your father and María’s, I should not approve the union. I ought also to
